Unanimous Consent Agreements: Going along in the Senate

Abstract

In recent decades the U. S. Senate has made increasing use of complex unanimous consent agreements (UCAs) to set a time for a final vote on legislation (thereby precluding filibusters) and to specify, for example, who may offer what amendments. Because of the numerous dilatory tactics permitted in the absence of a UCA, controversial legislation is typically doomed unless a prior agreement has been reached. Thus the norm of consent to unanimous consent requests (UCRs) is puzzling. This paper addresses the puzzle with a decision-theoretic model of consent which yields what appears to be a rather stringent condition for objection to a UCR. Two actual cases of objection are analyzed and seem quite consistent with comparative statics results derived from the model. A concluding discussion considers UCAs as instances of endogenously chosen institutions which provide Senate leaders with opportunities to induce cooperative behavior.